Maybe hero is too strong, or a word too-often tossed around in a playful manner... I might have said what you are doing is very admirable and more than a bit enviable.
@peter4jc said:
Maybe hero is too strong, or a word too-often tossed around in a playful manner... I might have said what you are doing is very admirable and more than a bit enviable.
Gotcha, as previously stated by myself, I’m not the brightest tool in the shed.
That Banana Boat crap was found to have something like 200 times the PPE requiring level of benzene in it also. Neutrogena is one of the few sunscreens I trust.
"Cooking isn't about struggling; It's about pleasure. It's like sǝx, with a wider variety of sauces."
At any given time the urge to sing "In The Jungle" is just a whim away... A whim away... A whim away...
Out of Vernal I went down this valley road that I’d read about. It was 40 or 50 straight miles of oil pumps all hard at work.
The road is a pretty stupid road in terms of getting from point A to point B, because it just winds and winds at the bottom of this valley, with no other roads that lead into it. It’s really only there to access the pumps. But because of all the winding, and no other access roads with other cars entering, it’s an incredible bike road.
It made me think more about fracking during the ride today. Fracking is only profitable when gas is above a certain price point. Let’s call that $3, I don’t know what the specific number actually is. If gas is $2.50, the fracking companies lose money and eventually go out of business. If gas is $3.50, they pump away and print away. When gas is more expensive, more fracking operations set up shop, and America produces its own oil (and natural gas), to the point of being an exporter of oil instead of an importer, while creating thousands of jobs. Not just any jobs either, but jobs that pay well, that can eventually mean someone with a high school education can buy a house and have the wife stay home to take care of the kids while the husband is in the middle of nowhere working the pumps.
On the other hand, gas being $3.50 isn’t all that great for the rest of America, and everyone would have more spending money to stimulate the economy if it were cheaper. We’d also be importing our oil though, and giving more of our money to countries that won’t let their women leave the house without covering their face. I think I lean toward the side of paying more for my gas and getting it from here, than I do for having it be cheaper and coming from elsewhere, but I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to look into that more when I get home.
The ride slowly turned from that into the desert. This was kind of the transition phase:
Until it became this:
When you enter Hanksville, UT. There’s all kinds of signs warning you that this is the last place to fill up for 100 miles, and there’s no service stations of any kind along the Utah Bicentennial Highway.
It was 108 degrees by this point, and I was feeling it, being from Iowa and all. The nice lady at the gas station let me stand inside the cooler for a bit.
The ride from there was incredible, the heat made it so much more intense than it otherwise would have been, and I was full of energy. It was like my body knew I was in an inhospitable place, and was trying to do what it could to get me out. I knew I had nowhere to stop, and if something happened I had no service, and basically no cars passing by. There wasn’t a single house or place of business the entire 100 miles, just me and the desert. I didn’t take any pictures until the end of it, because when I got below 20 miles an hour, it felt like I was melting, so I decided to wait until I was closer to civilization and just keep going. It got up to 114 degrees according to my bike’s screen.
It was an unbelievably beautiful area, and now that I’m in my room, I wish I had toughed it out and taken some pictures, but whatever. I kind of entered a trance about halfway through that 100 miles when it was above 110, where I was fully aware of my surroundings, but would be seeing other scenes play out in my head of random stuff. Now I really want to try a traditional Native American sweat lodge at some point in my life and see what that’s like.
This is the edge of the Moki Dugway, a 15 mph 10% grade gravel road that winds back and forth down the side of whatever mountain this is, about 10 miles away from Mexican Hat, UT where I am now. I didn’t mess around on it, just slow and gentle the whole way down.
I knew today was going to be intense, but it’s really hard to describe. It was just incredible, and I hope I never forget what it felt like. No sun burns either, Neutrogena for the win again.
This is why I like to research first, instead of doing spur of the moment travel. Here’s what the Motel looks like from the outside, very normal.
But here’s what you get. Never seen a swinging grill before.
This is the entire food menu.
And the result:
This is what Navajo Nation looked like in between the towns.
I spent about 10 minutes talking with an Indian construction worker at a gas station. He loved my bike, and it never even occurred to me until I arrived there that maybe my bike being named an Indian could be considered offensive. I asked him about that, and he said that’s not true. They all call each other Indians, and no one on the reservation uses the term Native American. someone else came over and joined in (a much older man) because he also wanted to talk about my bike. He said that white people are just trying to change the name to Native American because they’re embarrassed at how stupid they were hundreds of years ago. Now the Indians all view it as funny, calling each other Indians is both them taking ownership of what used to be a pejorative, and a reminder that white people aren’t all that smart. He told me to refer to them as Indians when talking with people back home in the future, so I will.
Stopped at the four corners just to take a picture, and bought some small things made by Indians to take back home and give out.
The place I stopped at for lunch was a Tibetan restaurant. I never even knew that was a thing, it was great.
This reminded me of work, odds are this driver is getting fired.
The million dollar highway was amazing, but jam packed with people. It’s definitely something I’m glad I saw, but now that I’ve been I don’t think I’d go back because I was crawling the whole ride. It was stunning, but not as stunning as Going-to-the-Sun road, which is still the most incredible thing I’ve seen.
I’m going to get near trail ridge road tomorrow, and then take another rest day so I can ride that on Monday, in the hopes it will lead to less traffic, and because I’m ahead of schedule.
From what I’ve seen, Colorado is thriving, big time, way more than North Dakota even. The entire ride was filled with small towns, and I didn’t see a vacant building the entire time. New construction was going on in like half the towns as well.
I think it’s a work from home thing. Since most big companies today let their upper management work from home, while the workforce has to go into the office, the upper management can live wherever they want. This ride was planned to be beautiful, and someone making a lot of money would definitely want to live along the route I took. I wonder if the small towns in other parts of the state are also thriving, or maybe the whole state is just beautiful.
I guess people here just have llamas in the back of their trucks?
Staying in Black Hawk, CO tonight, going to play some poker today and tomorrow.
I had to wait until 2pm to get into Rocky Mountain National Park because you need reservations before then and I didn’t realize that. Ate lunch in the tourist trap town Grand Lake, CO while killing time and had an absolutely atrocious brisket sandwich. Patrick has spoiled me.
The park was amazing.
Route 36 east of Denver was basically just warmer North Dakota, once the mountains ended. Obviously that makes sense, given that it’s the Great Plains at that point. The only difference was the crops, because of the temperature difference.
Somehow, route 36 had fewer cars on it than route 2 in Montana did. That confused me at first, until I realized that anyone going any significant distance would be taking highway 70 from Denver to Kansas City. I just set the cruise control to 90 and relaxed, seeing 1 car every 15 minutes or so and riding by all the farms.
The small towns I passed through on 36 east of the mountains were all deserted and vacant, boarded up businesses everywhere. I Almost ran out of fuel at one point because the gas station on my gps was boarded up. So it does in fact appear to be the views that are drawing people to the small towns I passed through in the mountains, but I know that’s just anecdotal.
I must confess, I entered a gravel lot and leaned into the turn a little instead of putting my feet down first and turning using my front wheel, with the bike exactly 90 degrees from the ground, like you’re supposed to do on gravel, and I slid and tipped it over. Just laziness on my part 350 miles into the day. At least I was only going like 5 mph when I tipped. It’s got highway bars, so everything was fine aside from a very small 1 inch scratch on the bottom rear corner of the saddlebag. Can’t be lazy on a motorcycle, no matter how tired you are. Easy lesson to remember though, because picking up an 800 pound bike suuuuucks.
Stopped in St. Francis, KS for the night, just inside the KS border. Curious to see if there’s any differences between the CO portion of 36 and the KS portion, the way there was between MN and ND.
As you head east on 36 through Kansas the land will slowly change to occasional rolling hills, if I recall correctly. I remember being moved by endless fields of sunflowers in full bloom, but that's conditional to the season.
I've had the same tip-over experience with my Electra-Glide, 836 lbs, great for the hamstrings. (He said facetiously) Ouch. Great posts, Calvin. I look forward to both your musings and your pictures. Keep up the good work.
WARNING: The above post may contain thoughts or ideas known to the State of Caliphornia to cause seething rage, confusion, distemper, nausea, perspiration, sphincter release, or cranial implosion to persons who implicitly trust only one news source, or find themselves at either the left or right political extreme. Proceed at your own risk.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
Need a favor. Anyone have access to a fog forecast on their computer that they can post here? For this stretch? I can’t find a fog specific one on my phone without paying for a premium subscription to something. Wondering if I should wait it out or if it’s going to be like this all day. This is the stretch I’ll be doing today.
@CalvinAndHobo this is from the weather station in Dodge City. It looks like the fog is lifting. It’s calling for 7mi of visibility right now. The rate that the heat is rising it should be gone before long.
It made me think more about fracking during the ride today. Fracking is only profitable when gas is above a certain price point. Let’s call that $3, I don’t know what the specific number actually is. If gas is $2.50, the fracking companies lose money and eventually go out of business. If gas is $3.50, they pump away and print away. When gas is more expensive, more fracking operations set up shop, and America produces its own oil (and natural gas), to the point of being an exporter of oil instead of an importer, while creating thousands of jobs. Not just any jobs either, but jobs that pay well, that can eventually mean someone with a high school education can buy a house and have the wife stay home to take care of the kids while the husband is in the middle of nowhere working the pumps.
On the other hand, gas being $3.50 isn’t all that great for the rest of America, and everyone would have more spending money to stimulate the economy if it were cheaper. We’d also be importing our oil though, and giving more of our money to countries that won’t let their women leave the house without covering their face. I think I lean toward the side of paying more for my gas and getting it from here, than I do for having it be cheaper and coming from elsewhere, but I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to look into that more when I get home.
I’ve now very firmly come to the pro expensive gas pumped locally side of the argument. This picture makes my blood boil.
If gas becomes cheap again, it means fracking stops and we give more money to Saudi Arabia to import it.
If a country has bad health care, it should be equally bad for both men and women. If 46% of your population is women and 54% men, that means 4 out of 100 women have either been left to die with diseases that men have been treated for, fled the country due to its oppression, or just been murdered either as babies or as adults. That’s a horrifyingly high number. I don’t want to support that financially.
Saudi Arabia also has a large number of immigrant males being imported to work for peanuts, which is just slavery by a different name. So maybe the ratio isn’t actually 4 out of 100, but either reason is disgusting.
No sunflower farms that I saw, aside from one yesterday in eastern Colorado. Tons of wheat farms, and cattle/pasture though. The further east I got, the more the towns came to life. Western Kansas was the same as Colorado, basically abandoned aside from the farms. Then the towns started having a gas station and a Dollar General. I wonder if Dollar General was founded somewhere in KS, there was one in basically every town. Further east, you started to get grocery stores and restaurants. Eventually, you got Walmarts and multiple options for your fuel and food.
Gas is cheaper here than anywhere else I’ve been, about $3.20 for 87 octane with 10% ethanol. Something like 3/4 of the stations didn’t sell 91 octane, which was annoying.
Kansas also seems to have an obesity problem, but not as bad as ND. It’s funny, because from what I’ve seen of it, the food here isn’t good.
I don’t understand civilians who buy Ford Explorers in black or in white. It’s like you’re asking for everyone in front of you to drive exactly the speed limit.
I’ve decided that the perfect riding weather is 82 degrees, a little humid, and cloudy.
I get sad when I see crops being sprayed with pesticides. We’re just poisoning ourselves as a country in the name of profit margins.
I didn’t get too many pictures today, because Kansas looks exactly like where I live in Iowa, just wheat fields instead of corn fields. I like this picture though.
Stopped in Hiawatha for the night. Going to swing down to Kansas City tomorrow and try to find some good barbecue if anyone has any recommendations, then probably play some more poker until I either lose $300, or until Sunday when the coworker who’s watching my cat is expecting me back, whichever comes first.
This is kind of the end of the road trip. Kansas City to home in Bernard is the last leg. 350 miles home and none of it is interesting, or culturally different from where I live. I could just head home tomorrow, but I’m ahead of schedule and under budget so I’m going to goof off for a few more days, since I won’t have any more time off available until next year.
Comments
Calvin's my new hero.
I’m confused.
You've had a thought, a big thought, and here you are turning it into reality.
I can’t even make my bed every day let’s take it easy.
Now you are my new hero, too. First you get confused, then bored, then enlightened. Welcome to the path.
I’m pretty sure Peter was just being playfully sarcastic, reading it back. Went right over my head.
Maybe hero is too strong, or a word too-often tossed around in a playful manner... I might have said what you are doing is very admirable and more than a bit enviable.
Gotcha, as previously stated by myself, I’m not the brightest tool in the shed.
Bright enough to not let a dream go POOF!
That Banana Boat crap was found to have something like 200 times the PPE requiring level of benzene in it also. Neutrogena is one of the few sunscreens I trust.
At any given time the urge to sing "In The Jungle" is just a whim away... A whim away... A whim away...
Out of Vernal I went down this valley road that I’d read about. It was 40 or 50 straight miles of oil pumps all hard at work.
The road is a pretty stupid road in terms of getting from point A to point B, because it just winds and winds at the bottom of this valley, with no other roads that lead into it. It’s really only there to access the pumps. But because of all the winding, and no other access roads with other cars entering, it’s an incredible bike road.
It made me think more about fracking during the ride today. Fracking is only profitable when gas is above a certain price point. Let’s call that $3, I don’t know what the specific number actually is. If gas is $2.50, the fracking companies lose money and eventually go out of business. If gas is $3.50, they pump away and print away. When gas is more expensive, more fracking operations set up shop, and America produces its own oil (and natural gas), to the point of being an exporter of oil instead of an importer, while creating thousands of jobs. Not just any jobs either, but jobs that pay well, that can eventually mean someone with a high school education can buy a house and have the wife stay home to take care of the kids while the husband is in the middle of nowhere working the pumps.
On the other hand, gas being $3.50 isn’t all that great for the rest of America, and everyone would have more spending money to stimulate the economy if it were cheaper. We’d also be importing our oil though, and giving more of our money to countries that won’t let their women leave the house without covering their face. I think I lean toward the side of paying more for my gas and getting it from here, than I do for having it be cheaper and coming from elsewhere, but I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to look into that more when I get home.
The ride slowly turned from that into the desert. This was kind of the transition phase:
Until it became this:
When you enter Hanksville, UT. There’s all kinds of signs warning you that this is the last place to fill up for 100 miles, and there’s no service stations of any kind along the Utah Bicentennial Highway.
It was 108 degrees by this point, and I was feeling it, being from Iowa and all. The nice lady at the gas station let me stand inside the cooler for a bit.
The ride from there was incredible, the heat made it so much more intense than it otherwise would have been, and I was full of energy. It was like my body knew I was in an inhospitable place, and was trying to do what it could to get me out. I knew I had nowhere to stop, and if something happened I had no service, and basically no cars passing by. There wasn’t a single house or place of business the entire 100 miles, just me and the desert. I didn’t take any pictures until the end of it, because when I got below 20 miles an hour, it felt like I was melting, so I decided to wait until I was closer to civilization and just keep going. It got up to 114 degrees according to my bike’s screen.
It was an unbelievably beautiful area, and now that I’m in my room, I wish I had toughed it out and taken some pictures, but whatever. I kind of entered a trance about halfway through that 100 miles when it was above 110, where I was fully aware of my surroundings, but would be seeing other scenes play out in my head of random stuff. Now I really want to try a traditional Native American sweat lodge at some point in my life and see what that’s like.
This is the edge of the Moki Dugway, a 15 mph 10% grade gravel road that winds back and forth down the side of whatever mountain this is, about 10 miles away from Mexican Hat, UT where I am now. I didn’t mess around on it, just slow and gentle the whole way down.
I knew today was going to be intense, but it’s really hard to describe. It was just incredible, and I hope I never forget what it felt like. No sun burns either, Neutrogena for the win again.
This is why I like to research first, instead of doing spur of the moment travel. Here’s what the Motel looks like from the outside, very normal.
But here’s what you get. Never seen a swinging grill before.
This is the entire food menu.
And the result:
Spectacular
I know, You're a big dog and I'm on the list.
Let's eat, GrandMa. / Let's eat GrandMa. -- Punctuation saves lives
It'll be fine once the swelling goes down.
Now I'm drooling.
I did a sweat lodge last month. I'd suggest practicing setting cross legged on the ground, you'll be in that position for several hours.
Don't let the wife know what you spend on guns, ammo or cigars.
This is what Navajo Nation looked like in between the towns.
I spent about 10 minutes talking with an Indian construction worker at a gas station. He loved my bike, and it never even occurred to me until I arrived there that maybe my bike being named an Indian could be considered offensive. I asked him about that, and he said that’s not true. They all call each other Indians, and no one on the reservation uses the term Native American. someone else came over and joined in (a much older man) because he also wanted to talk about my bike. He said that white people are just trying to change the name to Native American because they’re embarrassed at how stupid they were hundreds of years ago. Now the Indians all view it as funny, calling each other Indians is both them taking ownership of what used to be a pejorative, and a reminder that white people aren’t all that smart. He told me to refer to them as Indians when talking with people back home in the future, so I will.
Stopped at the four corners just to take a picture, and bought some small things made by Indians to take back home and give out.
The place I stopped at for lunch was a Tibetan restaurant. I never even knew that was a thing, it was great.
This reminded me of work, odds are this driver is getting fired.
The million dollar highway was amazing, but jam packed with people. It’s definitely something I’m glad I saw, but now that I’ve been I don’t think I’d go back because I was crawling the whole ride. It was stunning, but not as stunning as Going-to-the-Sun road, which is still the most incredible thing I’ve seen.
I’m going to get near trail ridge road tomorrow, and then take another rest day so I can ride that on Monday, in the hopes it will lead to less traffic, and because I’m ahead of schedule.
Thanks again, Calvin. You are a good travel writer.
From what I’ve seen, Colorado is thriving, big time, way more than North Dakota even. The entire ride was filled with small towns, and I didn’t see a vacant building the entire time. New construction was going on in like half the towns as well.
I think it’s a work from home thing. Since most big companies today let their upper management work from home, while the workforce has to go into the office, the upper management can live wherever they want. This ride was planned to be beautiful, and someone making a lot of money would definitely want to live along the route I took. I wonder if the small towns in other parts of the state are also thriving, or maybe the whole state is just beautiful.
I guess people here just have llamas in the back of their trucks?
Staying in Black Hawk, CO tonight, going to play some poker today and tomorrow.
I had to wait until 2pm to get into Rocky Mountain National Park because you need reservations before then and I didn’t realize that. Ate lunch in the tourist trap town Grand Lake, CO while killing time and had an absolutely atrocious brisket sandwich. Patrick has spoiled me.
The park was amazing.
Route 36 east of Denver was basically just warmer North Dakota, once the mountains ended. Obviously that makes sense, given that it’s the Great Plains at that point. The only difference was the crops, because of the temperature difference.
Somehow, route 36 had fewer cars on it than route 2 in Montana did. That confused me at first, until I realized that anyone going any significant distance would be taking highway 70 from Denver to Kansas City. I just set the cruise control to 90 and relaxed, seeing 1 car every 15 minutes or so and riding by all the farms.
The small towns I passed through on 36 east of the mountains were all deserted and vacant, boarded up businesses everywhere. I Almost ran out of fuel at one point because the gas station on my gps was boarded up. So it does in fact appear to be the views that are drawing people to the small towns I passed through in the mountains, but I know that’s just anecdotal.
I must confess, I entered a gravel lot and leaned into the turn a little instead of putting my feet down first and turning using my front wheel, with the bike exactly 90 degrees from the ground, like you’re supposed to do on gravel, and I slid and tipped it over. Just laziness on my part 350 miles into the day. At least I was only going like 5 mph when I tipped. It’s got highway bars, so everything was fine aside from a very small 1 inch scratch on the bottom rear corner of the saddlebag. Can’t be lazy on a motorcycle, no matter how tired you are. Easy lesson to remember though, because picking up an 800 pound bike suuuuucks.
Stopped in St. Francis, KS for the night, just inside the KS border. Curious to see if there’s any differences between the CO portion of 36 and the KS portion, the way there was between MN and ND.
As you head east on 36 through Kansas the land will slowly change to occasional rolling hills, if I recall correctly. I remember being moved by endless fields of sunflowers in full bloom, but that's conditional to the season.
I've had the same tip-over experience with my Electra-Glide, 836 lbs, great for the hamstrings. (He said facetiously) Ouch. Great posts, Calvin. I look forward to both your musings and your pictures. Keep up the good work.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
Need a favor. Anyone have access to a fog forecast on their computer that they can post here? For this stretch? I can’t find a fog specific one on my phone without paying for a premium subscription to something. Wondering if I should wait it out or if it’s going to be like this all day. This is the stretch I’ll be doing today.
@CalvinAndHobo this is from the weather station in Dodge City. It looks like the fog is lifting. It’s calling for 7mi of visibility right now. The rate that the heat is rising it should be gone before long.
The app I use is called Radar Now
Dew point is 65, gunna wait it out.
I’ve now very firmly come to the pro expensive gas pumped locally side of the argument. This picture makes my blood boil.
🤔 what am I missing
If gas becomes cheap again, it means fracking stops and we give more money to Saudi Arabia to import it.
If a country has bad health care, it should be equally bad for both men and women. If 46% of your population is women and 54% men, that means 4 out of 100 women have either been left to die with diseases that men have been treated for, fled the country due to its oppression, or just been murdered either as babies or as adults. That’s a horrifyingly high number. I don’t want to support that financially.
Saudi Arabia also has a large number of immigrant males being imported to work for peanuts, which is just slavery by a different name. So maybe the ratio isn’t actually 4 out of 100, but either reason is disgusting.
Or maybe the constant temperature has some affect on the out come of sex after conception like it does in some other animals.
Just poking Calvin. I understand your point.
No sunflower farms that I saw, aside from one yesterday in eastern Colorado. Tons of wheat farms, and cattle/pasture though. The further east I got, the more the towns came to life. Western Kansas was the same as Colorado, basically abandoned aside from the farms. Then the towns started having a gas station and a Dollar General. I wonder if Dollar General was founded somewhere in KS, there was one in basically every town. Further east, you started to get grocery stores and restaurants. Eventually, you got Walmarts and multiple options for your fuel and food.
Gas is cheaper here than anywhere else I’ve been, about $3.20 for 87 octane with 10% ethanol. Something like 3/4 of the stations didn’t sell 91 octane, which was annoying.
Kansas also seems to have an obesity problem, but not as bad as ND. It’s funny, because from what I’ve seen of it, the food here isn’t good.
I don’t understand civilians who buy Ford Explorers in black or in white. It’s like you’re asking for everyone in front of you to drive exactly the speed limit.
I’ve decided that the perfect riding weather is 82 degrees, a little humid, and cloudy.
I get sad when I see crops being sprayed with pesticides. We’re just poisoning ourselves as a country in the name of profit margins.
I didn’t get too many pictures today, because Kansas looks exactly like where I live in Iowa, just wheat fields instead of corn fields. I like this picture though.
Stopped in Hiawatha for the night. Going to swing down to Kansas City tomorrow and try to find some good barbecue if anyone has any recommendations, then probably play some more poker until I either lose $300, or until Sunday when the coworker who’s watching my cat is expecting me back, whichever comes first.
This is kind of the end of the road trip. Kansas City to home in Bernard is the last leg. 350 miles home and none of it is interesting, or culturally different from where I live. I could just head home tomorrow, but I’m ahead of schedule and under budget so I’m going to goof off for a few more days, since I won’t have any more time off available until next year.
Arthur Bryant's 1727 Brooklyn, a KC landmark and historic attraction.
Don't let the wife know what you spend on guns, ammo or cigars.